Hushed-up hospitalisationChildren suffering from tuberculosis who were sent to Tromsø Coast Hospital in the 1950s were sometimes placed in plaster cast for up to 19 years. When Stein Nordby was discharged he was 15 years old. “The worst time was afterwards” he says. He burnt anything and everything that reminded him of his hospitalisation. Tuberculosis was a disease which was associated with shame. Many of those who were put into sanitoriums as children have never spoken about it with their children or anybody else. One of them relates: “It was a disease that affected those of us who were poor and of low social status. So I never told anybody about it. I don’t think ever even told my wife.” Photo: Stein Nordby, patient at Tromsø Coast Hospital, 1951-1960.